“Imagine you’re at a hospital eating lunch and you collapse,” Kirsten Swanson said in her KOAT report. “Instead of doctors rushing to your aid, you wait 30 minutes for an ambulance to drive you around the building to the emergency room. ... VA policy states that if any medical emergency happens outside of the main hospital, staff calls 911.”

Individuals from the Kirtland Air Force Medical Group performed CPR on the man in the cafeteria.

KOAT said officials did not know if any doctors were in the cafeteria when the man collapsed.

News of the tragedy spread quickly, escalating concerns already rampant after government reports indicated that veterans were not being treated adequately or quickly enough at VA hospitals around the country.

Long delays in care for veterans highlighted “significant and chronic system failures” in the system, according to a report by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Rob Nabors, the AP reported.

“Once again another person has died as the result of some ‘policy,’ only to hear that they are ‘reviewing the policy.’ The more things change, they more they stay the same,” one person commented on the KOAT story.